Best 3D app for 'holistic' 3D work? Recommendations please!

[Seekerfinder]

Ok, even formulating this question is difficult, so I will try give some criteria as to what might result in what I think would be a helpful response. First, some context.

Archviz is still my main focus with Octane but product design and animation work is increasing slowly. We use Revit and Sketchup extensively in the office currently. If the Octane for Sketchup's development was consistent it would have included animation by now and I may have considered using SU for my purposes. But it's not and unfortunately I can't count on it like I can with Paul's excellent work with the Revit plugin. So... I need to look elsewhere for a more comprehensive app that can handle:
* animation
* motion tracking
* physics

Ideally it would be great if I can avoid going to AE for things like text and transitions but, since voice-overs or music will be part of the deal at times I guess this is unavoidable - and probably not a bad thing. Having interactivity built in would be cool too - press here, THAT happens etc. But I don't think such a comprehensive app even exists yet and of course there are third party apps that could do that (or plain old HTML).

So, my criteria is as follows:
1. It would help if you have used at least 2 such applications and can give me your experience with them and why you prefer one over the other (or when);
2. Learning curve is an issue. I love what I see with Houdini, Clarisse (but no Octane - agh!!) and Maya. But I think the curve is too high for those. If you picked up a new 3D app recently and found the learning curve user friendly, please let me know!
3. Please don't tell me 'whatever works for you' / 'everyone is different' / depends on your needs' etc... I know that. I will certainly try a few but I am trying to create some decision framework to do this most effectively.

The main contenders are (in no particular order):
A. modo
B. C4D
C. MAX

Maybe there are others I need to be introduced to (I am not interested in Blender for the moment since I don't feel that the open source model is reliable enough yet - I know it's feature rich...).

Thanks in advance!

Seeker

[smicha]

Seeker,

I was exactly in your shoes about two months ago. I've been using Sketchup for about 3 years and my modelling habits are so influenced by the way SU works. First of all I must say: measuring, scaling, and 2D tools are unmatched (all fredo, tig, chris fullmer, tomtom plugins and others are so miraculous). So even today my basic design in terms of scaling is done in SU.

But as for interactive works with Octane I gave a shot with Modo - all you need is there with some drawbacks I'll write later on.
1. SubD mode is the best - super fast, responsive and smoothly implemented in Octane plugin. What took about 100MB in SU now it takes 1MB in modo (in terms of file size). It saves blazing fast.
2. Great retopology tools. Even when I use Zbrush I retopo it in modo (or refine models after zremesher) and use a tab key to get into subD mode.
3. Fantastic UV tools.
4. Painting, sculpting - all is there.
5. Animation - jaw dropping. Deformers, modifiers, kinematics, incredible particle emitters, ....
6. Rendering - Octane plugin with great support from Paul (author of the plugin). We both know how painful is lack of Bro in SU works. Octane for Modo - help is instant.


Learning curve: first I watched almost all Peter Stammbach videos to get the feeling of how it works. There is also The Foundry channel, but the tutorials are too fast and some basic knowledge is required. Pat Crandley videos are so cool. Foundry forum and their TV channel is also great.

What was and still is hard for me to get used to:
1. 2D tools are so weird compared to SU. I almost don't use them at all - I export from SU fbx files to modo and then refine a final form.
2. Quad based approach is almost a must. So be prepared to get use to it.
3. SU snapping system is by far superior to all other software I used (3Ds max included). In modo you'll have many options to activate/deactivate. Actions centers require some time to learn. In SU it is so simple. I really wish SU snapping was present in Modo.

So my choice is Modo but I still use SU for some basic design.

[smicha]

And I forgot about Mesh Fusion
http://youtu.be/kjzfhbW2hNY

[Seekerfinder]

Thanks for your input, Smicha. I saw some of your comments elsewhere on the forum regarding modo. It is clearly working for you and it may do the job for me too. I have been following modo from the start and they're really strong with modelling as well as the other stuff. Thanks for the training references - I will have a look.

Cinema4D also seems to be very popular and rivals MAX pretty much head to head in plugin forum topic/page count. And I think the C4D plugin was release way after MAX (?). I like the mocap feature in C4D. And of course MAX has all the plugins in the world and a strong community (pity about the Autodesk factor).

Anyone that moved between MAX/C4D/modo - I'd like to hear of your experience.

Seeker

[smicha]

http://www.digitaltutors.com/software/modo-tutorials

[xcaseyx]

Im a avid and very much fanboy for cinema 4d. I do however also use houdini, and between cinema 4d, houdini, and octane my workstation feels like a whole studio in a box. Cinema 4d has one of the most rewarding learning curves I've ever experienced as a user.